Day 5 and it was getting pretty warm down here. Even most of the deck hands commented about the heat, although they said they liked that better than the cold they knew would be coming. We did find that as barges were locking through most often the deck hands were pretty talkative and all had great southern accents with a lot of yes sirs and yes ma’am’s thrown in the conversation.
On to Lock #19….We were really excited to check this one out since the town captain hyped it up. Ok, maybe it was our own fault because we seem to get to see traffic lock through on most of the L&D’s we have seen…this one there was not even one in sight. I used the Marine Traffic App and did not even see any up or down the river. ….we have been spoiled. Yes, the lock is very long in that it is 1000 feet which I am sure the captains like because they probably don’t need to break apart their loads to get through this lock and it can be a quick movement through.
Lock 20 was uneventful also…I think we have been spoiled by the MN, WI and Iowa locks with all the traffic we have seen.
Lock 21 did have traffic and we had the chance to not only talk to one of the deck hands but also one of the Army Corps of Engineers employees. Interesting story with this tow and barges. Turns out the original tow that had loaded up this barges was down river and it “deadheaded” the dam so it had to be rescued. I can only imagine that deadheading meant that he must have run in to the dam. So these guys, anchored their barges and took the tow and went and rescued this load and hooked it up and brought it up river. Its destination was at the next port just up the river a little so they would drop the barges off and then head back down river to their original barges and continue on. They had to wait for their barges to load so it worked out perfectly for them to help rescue this other tow captain. This was a strange lock in that it really only changed the water level 2-3 feet…where others had been 7-10 feet. The deck had told us that was because the water was so high. He said often at this lock they can just keep both gates open and the barges can just go right through….when the water level always this, they also open both gates. He told us they like it much better when both gates are open so they can just go right through and not have to stop to lock through.
Today we are on Day 6 and on to L&D 22. We had actually planned to go to 23 and 24 yesterday but the day got away from us staying at the L&D’s longer. We planned to be flexible depending on the boat traffic with no set reservations along the route. We hope to get to 22, 24 and maybe 25 today….yes, there is no 23! I am sure there must be a story there that we will need to check out.
See you on the river later! Stay cool…90’s here is Hannibal, MO! 90’s today and tomorrow and then cool and rain on Wednesday so hopefully we can finish seeing the L&D’s before that rain moves in!
